The Shop

The shop

My walk to work isn’t very long, even so, it is dangerous. But everywhere is dangerous, and my philosophy is, when the time is right, I will die. It might be from a passing wreck, an attack or, yes, a bullet. I don’t have control over any of these things. My mum used to say that I was too young for such sentiments, but that was before the stray bullet got her and that wasn’t even in a red zone. It was right outside our shack- a designated green area.

The shop is smack bang in the middle of a red zone. It would have to be, to get the trade we get, and who can complain. We are one of the few tribes with any income. My dad said that the street was always run-down, being in the wrong part of town. Now, all of the town is the wrong part. He said that litter had rarely been collected, and that there was a such a strong smell of sewage, he had to wear a mask when he was walking. He doesn’t walk the streets anymore. If he goes out, it is always in his chair, and he is never alone. The day mum died, was the day he stopped walking. She didn’t die quickly, we had weeks of her silent decline. He walked then. To and from the neighbour’s house which is also the makeshift hospice. He didn’t give up hope until the final minute. This is what I was told. I wasn’t there. Someone had to be at the shop.

This morning the sky looked almost pretty and if you stared at it long enough, the turquoise colour started to look like a normal blue. The kind you might see in old photos of the sky. It was early, so the street was quiet and other than the foxes, I thought I was alone. This is a lazy thought and not even possible, considering the amount of homeless that hide in the crevices of the walls until sun-up. But it was nice and so I jumped when I heard steps approaching me and my hand immediately went for my gun.

“Bit slow there kid.” The man drawled and both of us understood that he was too far gone for a fight, not if he was alone.

I knew not to speak and so instead I pointed the gun in his direction, pressed for help and waited. The man could have been aged anywhere between thirty to fifty. It looked like his years on the street had forged him and the colour of his skin was no longer detectable. Not that it mattered. Dad told me that issues of skin colour were a thing back in the day. Now, the problems we had, didn’t differentiate. Not on this street. It was either you were in, or you weren’t and this man, well, he clearly wasn’t.

He was tall and walked as though he believed himself to be in a Western movie. Not that I have seen one, but I have some pictures and when Dad still told stories he often ripped them off. Dad liked creating worlds so far removed from our own, that it blew our minds. But that was before mum. Before Charlotte, and before Kyle. Now he kept going and that’s he best I can say for him.

“I don’t want much kid. I’m just asking for a hand, that’s all I’m asking.” He leant onto his side and cocked his head, as though in doing so, I would be tricked into not seeing his height and breadth. I wanted to ask him to stop calling me kid, but I knew the rules. The rules had been ingrained into me and even if I wanted to break them, I probably couldn’t.

We both waited a second without movement, both knowing what was to come. And come it did, quietly and with stealth. In less than a minute we were surrounded. My dad was at the window of the shop with his speaker.

“Button come into the shop and let them deal.”

He lived under the false premise that I didn’t know what happened next. That I hadn’t lived my life on this street. That his paranoia which had saved us (two of us) hadn’t seeped into every part of me. I wondered about staying and watching, but I also knew my desk was full and what would be the point?

Everything had to have a point, my dad said, and I can never argue with him. Who could argue with a man like that? A man whose power hasn’t been depleted despite the tragedy of his life, of his body. A man whose brain works faster than any other and who can, and has predicted all that has come to pass. Not me. So, I put my gun back in its holster and I walked away from the man. I didn’t acknowledge my team. I kept my head down, following the instructions to the letter.

The bell rang loudly as I entered, and it surprised me. Dad must have fixed it last night, maybe that’s why he didn’t come home. Home. Neither of us really called it that anymore. What was it, other than some beds and a place to cook. The warmth had long gone, and all memories had been taken, “For the best.” Dad had said and I didn’t try and argue. What could I say. For me this was relatively new. This had been his life and losing my mum, the woman he had known for thirty years, the woman he had loved for longer, well, the rules would need to change to allow our survival. That much I understood.

So, I had watched as our community took away my mother’s, my sister’s and my brother’s things and I didn’t try to stop them. Dad watched me and he was proud, I think. Halfway through the event, and he seemed like he had changed his mind, and he asked, “You want one thing to remember?” I shook my head. This whole exercise was about not remembering, and I did what I have always done. I followed his lead. What else could I do. And so, our home became a shack with two beds, a hot plate, a fridge, a chest of draws and some pictures of Western’s on the walls.

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